


here is where we used to be, here is where we are.

by lushwang (theangryblob)



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Apocalypse, TOGETHER!!!!!, War, implied/referenced PTSD, past major character death, sorry 2 josh, traveling the world with your gf so you can get over all the people you lost, vague magic and lore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:42:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26223574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theangryblob/pseuds/lushwang
Summary: when the world ends, chan is left with three things: a garden, a girl, and her grief. not in that order.
Relationships: Chwe Hansol | Vernon/Lee Chan | Dino
Comments: 8
Kudos: 16
Collections: K-Pop Ficmix 2020





	here is where we used to be, here is where we are.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lacquer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lacquer/gifts).
  * Inspired by [an absence of green](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21307394) by [lacquer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lacquer/pseuds/lacquer). 



> a love letter to a fic that touched my heart. if you haven't already, PLEASE read [an absence of green](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21307394) by the very talented [lacquer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lacquer/pseuds/lacquer). my fic won't make sense without it, because its framed like a direct sequel to the original. its also just a really good fic, definitely worth the read.

_ I remember the last night on the beach, our lips, the sand _

_ Beneath our fingertips, the cries of the monkeys in the jungle. _

_ We thought we had outrun it but the earth crumbled _

_ just as we were finding the light.  _

\- “Post-Apocalypse Postcard with Love Note”, Jeannine Hall Gailey

She’s only ever seen the sea once, at night. The moon, pale and thin, hides behind the clouds like a blanket, too shy to show its face before her. Atop those cliffs the wind would batter you back and forth like a leaf, throw you out to sea without a care in the world. It smelled like salt, like brine, and carried the sound of the waves like an afterthought. 

She tells Hansol about it as they step onto the train carriage, the metal groaning under their feet. 

“How come you never went back?”

Chan shrugs. “We’re going back now, aren’t we?” She reaches out and takes Hansol’s metal hand in hers, flesh and iron knocking together as they clasp knuckles. Hansol never says anything but Chan can see the way she slows, joints clicking together like no one ever set them back right. The sun hangs above them, fat and warm, fresh with spring heat. It’s never too early for a break.

The carriage doors have been ripped open long ago, and though they no longer float they’re high enough off the ground that they can swing their legs over the tracks. The breeze comes through, lifts the rust like sparks in the air. 

“It was west of the continent,” Chan sweeps her arm in a broad gesture, not really pointing west or anywhere in particular, “and the cliffs were crumbling, but you could stand on the edge just fine. It was freezing though.” 

Hansol nods, doesn’t mention how Chan could only have ever gone that far because of the war. She knows, and Chan knows that she knows. 

“Were the stars different there? The constellations change when you go that far west, but I’ve never been.” She digs through their bag, hands Chan a water bottle. 

“I couldn’t tell,” she says, staring at the clouds above them, sweet and pale blue, like foam on the sea, “I couldn’t see them.”

Grey skies meant something different back then. 

•••

The air tastes like metal, sharp and hot. Smoke rises and falls, thick and dark, like a beast crawling down the sides of skyscrapers. Chan holds the rail above her head, boots balanced over the edge of the plane, four thousand meters above the ground. It occurs to her only after the sparks have left her hands that the smoke has taken root, condensed to become solid, moving, hungry. 

The way it grows and bursts forward, it looks like the sky itself has come down, jaw unhinged to swallow the city whole. 

She’s safe up here, maybe. But even as the plane circles and heads towards the interior, Chan can see the clouds spiral like a tornado in reverse. For the thousandth day she thinks she might be seeing the end of the world, but she sees that storm six more times.

Helps build it six more times. 

•••

Hansol sits on her bed roll, eyes closed as Chan leans above her, knees bracketing her hips. The blood on her face has stopped dripping, finally, but the scratch is red, oozing. Chan thinks that once, a long time ago, Hansol might have been unflinching. She was too, after all. The sting of alcohol is so familiar, but Hansol twitches under her hand all the same. It’s a new sensation every time. 

“Don’t move,” she whispers. Her hand falters over Hansol’s cheek, a cotton pad squished between her fingers. 

She’s going slow, but how good it is to just sit here, like this, and watch Hansol’s face smooth out, handsome and tanned with the summer. Her flesh hand comes to rest on Chan’s thigh for balance and she breaks her reverie, cleans the cut efficiently and seals it with a plaster. 

When Hansol opens her eyes, it’s slow, like waking up. She’s got one of those smiles on her face, like she doesn’t even know she’s smiling. The kind of smile that makes Chan’s whole chest swell, like her heart is too big for her ribs and it’s going to rip itself from her chest, present itself to Hansol in all its bloody honesty:  _ I am here. I am in your hands for you to do as you please, so– Please love me. _

“How’s your arm?” she says instead, sitting cross legged in front of her. 

Hansol raises her arm, turns it slowly for her to inspect. “It doesn’t hurt anymore. Just aches.”

Chan touches her shoulder, feels the motley of scars under her shirt. She rubs her thumb over it slowly, to soothe, to have an excuse to touch. She’s always wanting to touch, feel the warmth of Hansol and her bright, rumbling heart, and Hansol lets her, easy as anything, easy as the moon rising above them. Its pale light shines across her grin, like it can’t help but look too, like there’s nothing else to see but Hansol’s smile, her lips, her teeth.

When she leans in to kiss, finally kiss her, Hansol closes those stars she calls eyes, cradles Chan’s face with both hands, like a gift. 

She’s getting better at this. Hansol’s hand no longer sparks and the fire she tends inside of her doesn’t burn the way it used to. Doesn’t ravage her anymore. Less like arson or a bomb, but a hearth that she can warm her hands over. 

•••

When the end of the world came, it swept across the world like sunlight, like the end of a nightmare. Their planes never took off, and they never came for her. 

When she woke up, she was half buried, the mud caked around her face, limbs heavy as stone as she forced herself off the ground. There’s a crater around her where she’d collided with the ground, deep enough that she had some difficulty getting herself out of it. The battlefield was still hot, smoke lifting to the pink horizon, wreckage all around her. Even when she thought she’d been there before, the air tasted different, and her whole body tingled. 

No one came for her. 

The skies were empty. Logically, she knew she should wait. There were mages that scour the battlefields, searching for survivors, for corpses to pull. She’d been trained on what to do in this situation, but something had shifted in the world, inside of her. The current under her skin fizzled, twitched, spareds. Volatile. Uncontrolled. 

She knew better than to wait. 

So. 

•••

_ Above the clouds the storm looks like the sea, rolling waves of black mist that rise and fall, breaking with the wind and thunder. It swirls under her, dark water illuminated from underneath by lightning and fire, artificial and otherwise.  _

_ The engines are both deafening and silent, a noise so omnipresent that Chan has grown used to the sound of nothing, in her ears and between them. There’s no thinking up here, no time for it either. There is only the smoke, only the soot against your face and the blood from your nails, swimming up against gravity.  _

_ Wings rise from under the waves, black-tipped and bruised, followed by a column of flame and an unholy shriek. It’s pitched. Pained. Human.  _

_ Chan doesn’t know when she steps forward but one moment she is on the airship, the next she is in the air, wind curling against her face like a caress, the storm swallowing her whole. She feels like she’s sinking rather than falling, the waves pulling her under.  _

_ She sinks, and above her Soonyoung rises, wings fading to dust, carried up like smoke. _

_ When she hits the ground, she’s still reaching up, arms outstretched for her.  _

Chan’s eyes snap open. She’s burning.

It’s hot  _ hot  _ **_hot_** , heat rising up like a blanket over her. She rolls over, pushes herself onto her arms and scampers away. She’s sweating all over, hands scraping against the ground as she pants, gasps for breath. Her vision goes fuzzy, head spinning before the mirage lifts from her eyes and the world slows into place before her.

Her bedroll is nearly flipped over, messed up from her tossing and turning. The fire crackles undisturbed, far from her feet. 

Hansol rises, slow like the rust is collecting between her joints, and looks at her, eyes shining even as her face sits in shadow, turned away from the light to her. 

“Chan?”

Chan’s throat feels so dry, cracking like wood to flame, and she makes a desperate noise, strangled like a sob.

“Did you have a nightmare?” Hansol fumbles, turning to get her water bottle before beckoning Chan to her. And Chan goes to her, crawls back on her hands and knees and takes the water from Hansol’s hand, takes Hansol’s hand. 

“It’s okay. I’m sorry for waking you up.”

Hansol shakes her head. “It’s okay. You’ll feel better if you drink.” 

She’s right about that. The blood settles in Chan’s veins and the pressure lifts from her shoulders, spine realigning like knobs clicking into place. The years of transfiguration have done strange things to her bones. Made them curl into something more attuned to violence than rest, and Chan has to knock them back into place one by one every time they forget she’s meant to be human. 

The sky is still dark, and by the looks of it, it’s going to be for a while longer. Hansol runs her fingers through Chan’s hair, lets it loose from her ponytail. Even in the dark, Chan can see her smile, the way her eyes shine as they fall on her, slow and bright, sun rising on her. 

“Thanks,” she murmurs, sagging against Hansol and pressing her forehead to her shoulder, taking in deep breathes. She smells like earth - not bad, not unclean. Just warm, like grass and campfire. 

When Chan walked this road last year, the sky was perpetually grey, smoke and pollution curling up as the fires still raged on. Now, the stars blink above her, pale behind the clouds.

Hansol brings a hand to her face, cupping her jaw as she brushes her lips to Chan’s temple. “Sleep. We’ve got a long day ahead of us.”

Chan wraps her arms around Hansol, fingers coming under her shirt to touch her waist, finding comfort in the feel of her skin. She sleeps. 

•••

The sun is in her eyes. They say the world has ended but Chan never thought it’d be this  _ bright. _ The cities aren’t livable anymore, replaced with mile high piles of metal and glass and concrete, but the debris and dust isn’t enough to stop the prisms from their task. Without magic to hold it together it all just sits there, bared, seen as what it really is. 

Chan stays, but only because she doesn’t know what else to do. No one else came for her. 

So. This is where she starts, combing through the wreckage, setting tents, lying. It’s easy to hide. Nobody here talks anymore. You’d think they’d lost their voices too, but she hears them speak, every once in a while.  _ Where are we? Have you seen my family? Please, can’t you help me? _

She blends in more when she keeps to herself, and that’s fine by her. During the day she carts away debris, and at night she looks at the calloused skin of her palms, veins running under like black lightning. 

By the time the color fades to a greenish blue, still abnormally vibrant, Chan’s grown restless. 

What reprieve is there in pulling bodies from buildings? There are burdens that she will always carry in her throat and no amount of self-flagellation will change that. 

The roads are still empty when she sets out. The asphalt stretches for hundreds of miles, reaching into the mountains beyond the horizon, curling east out to the sea. There used to be a forest here, now replaced by stumps and charred land. 

Brown grass sprouts from the soil, sparse and swaying in the wind. Chan puts one foot in front of the other. 

•••

Hansol ties her hair back, groaning as she leans back, head hanging a little too far over the edge of the cart. The summer sun reaches its highest point in the sky and the sweltering heat is almost too much to bear, but the lines of sweat dripping down Hansol’s neck stop any complaints in Chan’s throat. Her skin shines in the sun, hair sticking to her temples. When she reaches for her water bottle, a drop of water slides down her chin when she drinks and disappears into her shirt. 

“You guys have extra shirts? You should cover your heads with something, or you might get a heat stroke.”

She can’t help but frown, throwing a glare to Seungcheol even though he grins back, completely unaware of how he’s disrupted her view. 

He just grins, carefree and humming as he bobs his head, cooing at the mules pulling his cart. He’d named them, but at the moment Chan can’t bother to remember their names. Hansol is pulling towels from her bag and holding one out for Chan, who pouts before she snatches it out of her hand. 

“What’s got you in a mood?”

“Nothing,” she grumbles, using the towel to dab the sweat at the back of her neck before draping it over her face. Chan crosses her arms over her chest and sulks. 

Hansol laughs, bright and amused, and Chan is glad her face is covered because she’s not sure she could blame this blush on the heat. “Sure. It’ll be cooler when we get to the ocean, so just wait it out.” Chan startles when Hansol touches her ankle, palm rubbing against it to soothe her, like she’s a child. “Promise it’ll get better.”

She sulks harder, shoulders drawn right up to her cheeks. Of course, Hansol thinks it's the heat. She’s so clueless sometimes; does she even  _ know _ what she does to Chan?

“What are you guys going to do at the ocean? If you don’t mind me asking, I mean?”

She doesn’t have to look to picture Seungcheol and his gummy smile, already imprinted in her brain. He’s easy on the eyes, a little too child-like for her tastes, but Chan can’t complain. He’s the first face they’ve seen in days and though his cart is barely faster than walking she’s grateful for the break. A year in Joshua’s house had made her soft. She’s not as fit as she used to be, but she hasn’t noticed till now. 

“We’re travelling. Chan and I have always wanted to see the world, and there’s nothing really stopping us anymore, you know?”   
Hansol answers for both of them and Chan wishes her eyes weren’t covered because she wants to  _ see _ her, wants to see how she gestures and how her mouth moves when she speaks, eyes soft and smiling, even while her face is impassive. 

Seungcheol makes a noise of understanding. “Yeah, I get what you mean. I have a friend like that - haven’t seen him in a couple months, but after the war ended he just kinda packed up and left. Went south to see if he could find our friends and left everything to me.”

“Your friends?”

“They were soldiers. Haven’t seen them in a couple years.”

_ They’re probably dead,  _ Chan thinks, but she bites her tongue. 

Hansol hums. “How come you didn’t go with him?”

“I wanted to at first.” Seungcheol is a little quieter. Contemplating? Maybe. Chan yanks the towel off her head and sits up. She doesn’t want to be left out. “But nobody else really knew what to do when the end came. I stayed behind so I could help out. Half the town was destroyed and the other half can’t function without magic, so we’ve been rebuilding.”

“Oh!” Hansol perks up, leans in a little closer, resting her arm against a bundle of metal scraps. “That’s nice.”

Seungcheol laughs, ears pink. “Sort of. I guess. There’s not a lot of us left, but my home used to be really pretty. It’d be nice if we could rebuild it. We’re at the base of Mount Kiri, by the river. We used to be a farming town, and the view from the village meant you could see all the fields and the river. It flooded last summer ‘cause the dam wasn’t working, but it didn’t really damage anything. That wasn’t damaged already, anyway. If anything, it took away a lot of the debris into the river. We’re gonna plant rice this year, to see if we can make the most of it.”

Chan moves to lie down, uses her bag as a pillow and fixes her towel above her face to block out the sun. She should rest at least, while she can. 

There’s something about Seungcheol, about hearing about his home that makes something ache in her chest. 

Going home - going home to rebuild, to find your friends, to make something out of it. The war started long before Chan was born and it’s the only reality she’s ever known. Nobody knew what to do when the world ended - because everything is still here, but everything she knows about it has changed. It’s a chance to remake herself, her and Hansol, but  _ home. _

Her eyes sting and she breathes deeply, wills her heart to calm. 

Seungcheol is lucky, she thinks, lucky that he still has something to go home to, something to rebuild. When Chan tried, things didn’t work out so cleanly for her. There’s a bitterness that rises up her throat, stinging her all the way to her mouth, lips curling into a snarl. 

Hansol touches her ankle, fingers calloused and gentle, and Chan deflates, letting the tension fall from her body and drop onto the road beneath them to be left behind. 

Things are different now. She can’t say she’s unhappy, even if she misses things that have already come to pass. 

She can still hear them talking, but Hansol and Seungcheol fade against the wheels creaking beneath her and the crunch of the asphalt. The wind is pleasant on her skin, the sun softened behind her towel. The air’s clearer now than it’s been for years, and faintly, she can hear birds chirping. They must be close to the forest line now. 

Hansol rubs the ball of her ankle absently, and Chan lulls to a sleep. They’ve still got a ways to go before they get to the sea. 

•••

The trek up the mountain was far worse than Chan had anticipated. She’d been on the road for months, braved the worst of the summer heat and the smog rolling across the plains, but it was nothing compared to the mountains that rose up around her, trees like giants, the canopy like a blanket that smothers her. She’s strong. She knows she is, but the closer she gets, the weaker she feels, limbs rusting, bones like lead. How long has she been walking? Waiting? 

The mountain path is paved, cool against her palms when she sits and stretches her legs out in front of her. She hasn’t been up here in years but she knows she’s close. 

Chan looks at her boots. They’re nearly falling apart and caked in mud. Her toes are sweating and her feet feel  _ gross _ . When was the last time she had a bath? 

She doesn’t want to see him like this. 

Chan puts her head in her hands. The sun rises overhead, pale over the mountains. It’s always cool up here, pleasant, welcoming. Walking up these steps is the closest Chan has come to walking home in years, and for that she forces herself up. Guilt weighs her feet down and the coil in her gut sparks, uncomfortable and screeching. But Chan is stubborn, she always has been, and so she pushes on. She has to finish this too.

She picks up a rock and leans against a tree as she scrapes the mud off her boots. Her eyes sting, but even with her vision blurred, she doesn’t stop, scrapes away every bit of brown till her shoes appear again, black and scuffed. 

When the garden appears before, Chan inhales, whole body lifting as she breathes in. The plants are overgrown and the house looks like it’s in dire need of a repaint, but the familiarity rocks her to her core, makes her sway forward till she’s standing at the edge of the garden and her hips are touching the fence. 

Except - 

Chan stills, holding her breath till the woman comes to talk to her, sporting a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Hi! I haven’t seen you around here before.”

She lets out a breath. Tries to find her voice. Where was Joshua? If there was anyone who’d still wait for her at the end of the world, at the end of everything, despite everything she’s done…

“I used to visit this place before…”

_ Before. _

The path beneath her is uneven, and for the first time Chan feels like the world is lopsided when she stands on it. 

The woman looks at her, her eyes searching for something. Chan meets her gaze head on. What does she see? 

“I’ve been staying here for a couple months now.” Chan watches the sun shine off her arm, the exposed wires and channels. “If you don’t mind me asking, how were you connected to it?”

Chan shakes her head. “Before I answer that, could you tell me who you are?”

There’s a moment where they look at each other, and Chan waits. She’s come this far. A moment more won’t hurt. Whoever this woman is, she looks strong. Sturdy. The arm is enough to discern that, but she doesn’t waver or hesitate, and Chan knows she cuts a certain figure. She’s come all this way alone, after all. 

“I’m Chwe Hansol. Hong Joshua’s best friend.” 

Chan’s eyes widen. “I know him. I’m Lee Chan, I attended the same school as Joshua. Where is he?”

And then - and then she looks at Chan, a thousand colors flashing behind her eyes, and Chan’s heart sinks before she hears the words. Because of course - of  _ course _ , of course. Suddenly, she wishes she was anywhere else but here, would run all the way to the cities to throw herself under the fires and be burnt to a crisp. How many more times does she have to go through this? The war ended months ago, but it still takes and takes and takes. Unforgiving. 

Hansol looks at her, voice quiet, but firm. “He’s dead.” 

Chan blinks. Wonders if the world will be different when she opens her eyes. 

•••

Chan leans back, spine lined up against Hansol’s chest. The wind blows up from along the coast, white foam dancing over the tide. The water has pulled back from the sand, revealing crabs and shells and masses of seaweed over what seems like miles of exposed beach. 

Behind her Hansol dozes off, not quite sleeping but tucked against her, chin hooked over her shoulder and arms around Chan’s waist. The night feels like it’ll never end, and Hansol’s breath against her ear slows, steady as the tide pulling in. She can feel her heartbeat. Strong. A metronome that Chan can feel behind her eyelids, drum beat playing over her stretched skin. They lean heavily on each other, anchors, and Chan knows if she moves then Hansol will fall forwards, so she stays where she is, keeps her eyes trained on the horizon.

The wind is kinder than she thought it’d be. Along the western coast, the cliff sides hang like mountains over the sea, roots coming up as miles of rocky coast, a deadly trap for ships and swimmers alike. It's a bad sea to navigate in and the air above it was always just as hostile, no matter how high their airships flew. 

Here the sand is a pale yellow, speckled with glass pebbles rounded from years at sea, smoothed over into harmless charms. The treeline is close to the water and the soil was easy ground to pitch a tent, even though they had no plans on sleeping. They’re waiting, biding their time till the sun rises over the sea. The fabric rustles in the wind, frames Chan’s view of the horizon. 

She swallows. 

“I’m glad that you came with me.” Her tongue feels heavy in her mouth. “I would have thought about it for a long time. You and Joshua. The garden and the house.” 

Hansol hums in sleepy acknowledgment. “Are you saying you would have missed me?”

Something bristles in Chan, deep under her gut, at the base of her diaphragm, like it’s come unlodged after years. Like taking a rock out of her shoe, freeing but uncomfortable, an indent left in her skin where something has been buried against her. Buried with her. “Of course. I wouldn’t have… regretted it. But I think if I came here by myself…”

Chan trails off, and Hansol's hand moves from her stomach to her hand, fingers resting over her knuckles. “If you came by yourself?”

She exhales. Watches the sky purple. The stars look like glass, cracked against the sky, shining perfect and clear. Finally, she murmurs “ _ I don’t know, _ ” because half asleep, she can’t imagine it, can’t put her feelings to that murky thought of walking through these wide, open roads by herself. She’s done it once, and maybe she could do it again. But with the weight of Hansol against her shoulder, frizzy hair against her ear and the touch of her hands over her own, Chan finds that she’s too tired to imagine anything but the present. 

“I don’t know. I’m glad you’re with me.” The honesty of it makes her shrink her shoulders in, embarrassed, even though she doesn’t regret saying it. It’s the truth, at least. Hansol turns to kiss the shell of her ear, soft breath tickling her skin. 

“I’m glad I came with you.”

Chan hums, content, even as her cheeks warm. “The sun’s coming up.”

Chan steps out first, digging her feet into the sand as she holds a hand out for Hansol. She takes it with both, feels flesh and metal pressing against her palm. The waves crash against the shore, the tide pulling in. The winds are stronger away from the tree line, whipping Hansol’s hair against her face. She’d cut it when they’d started on their trip but it’s growing out again, framing her face and curling around her neck. 

She reaches out, sweeps the hair away from Hansol’s forehead. 

Behind them, the mountains stretch for miles, crawling the length of the continent, from pole to pole, the knuckles of a hand clenched over the earth. 

Before them, the ocean, flat and wide and blue, shining as the sun rises from its belly. 

They wade out into the sea, pants rolled up to their knees and holding hands. When they come to a stop, tiny fish come to swim around their feet, tickling Chan’s toes. The wind blows behind them, a silent voice tugging them out to sea. The water glitters, gems scattered over the waves. Distantly, she sees the rising bumps of whales swimming along the coast, behemoths framed by white froth. 

She looks at the metal cube in Hansol’s hand, looks at Hansol. Holds her breath. 

Hansol looks at her, squeezes her hand before she lets go to open the box. The sea churns around them, the breeze calls them, sweet and cold against her ears. And then she’s watching the wind carry his ashes out over the horizon.

Hansol drops the box into the water, and the fish that swarmed around them scatter. 

The wind pulls them too, but they don’t follow. 

Chan takes her hand again and takes a deep breath, smelling the salt in the air. She lifts her other hand, pointing out to the horizon. “Those are whales, right?”

Hansol nods, laces their fingers together and smiles. Smiles like the weight of the world has been lifted from her back. “Yeah. They bring their young here in the summer, when the waters are warmer. You’ve never seen whales before, have you?”

Chan shakes her head, can’t help but smile back. “No, I haven’t.” 

**Author's Note:**

> lacquer has SO many good fics, so i was really stuck on which one to do, but as i went through all of them and read 'an absence of green', it struck me so much. the hope in it... i think its a fic that really made me happy. i wanted to continue it without going overboard, because i think the way the original fic was paced and edited is already great and it ended at a good place. 
> 
> hope you guys enjoyed reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it <3


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